Teaching

I have created a LaTeX Syllabus template for my own courses and I hope you will find it useful for your own needs. The .tex file that you need can be downloaded here and a sample .PDF file generated with my own BibTex database can be found here

In essence, this is a course in international economics for students in International Relations. The course will provide you with basic economic tools with which to understand the modern global economy. By the end of this course you will be familiar with 1) basic economic principles, 2) essentials of international economics, 3) key economic forces and players in the international arena, 4) key conflicts and policy issues, and 4) the inherent challenges of the global economy. We will begin with some basic microeconomic and macroeconomic concepts. These are the tools upon which we will build in order to examine international trade, international production and international finance. Together, these three aspects of international economics will help us define and understand globalization as a prominent force in the world economy today. Against the background of globalization, we will consider the challenges of economic development and post-communist transition.

This course introduces students to international political economy. The course provides a survey of key conceptual approaches, historical development, and critical issues that have characterized the international political economy since the 19th century. We will first identify some of the dominant approaches to the study of IPE and consider their analytic puzzles and research strategies. We will then examine the transformation of the world economy since the globalization’s first wave in the 19th century, focusing especially on the development of institutions that oversee international trade and finance today. Next, we will apply the key analytical approaches to our discussion of major economic relationships that affect politics at the international level. First we will consider increased economic interdependence in trade and finance and what this means for the governance of the world economy. In light of these trends we will examine the literature on economic development and post-communist economic transition. We will pay special attention to the debates surrounding the consequences of globalization, against which we will examine the pressing problems of energy and environment. We will conclude the class with a discussion of possible future trends in the world economy.

International economic policy is determined as the outcome of both political and economic processes: politics, in that the influence of any groups works through the political system and economics, because the policies in question change economic incentives and redistribute income. Throughout this course we will be taking a political economy view that policy is the outcome o bargaining between interest groups in the political arena. As such politics and economics are never far apart – the economics identifies the potential gainers and losers; the politics determines who wins the contest. The course investigates the interaction of political and economic spheres in the process of international trade policy formation. We will develop a systematic framework to analyze these issues. We start by developing a set of simple models of international trade, in order to understand the redistributive effects of trade policy. We then add the political structure in order to attempt to understand the forces that influence the policies chosen by policy-makers. We investigate how domestic institutions like elections, lobbies and parties influence policy choices. We then move from a domestic focus to the one that introduces policy-interactions across borders and the role of the international trade-regulating institutions (GATT/WTO, NAFTA and its possible extension, the EU, and other regional arrangements). Lastly, we study a number of key contemporary issues in the politics of international trade: the globalization debate, regionalism vs. multilateralism debate, the link between trade and labor and environmental standards, and the role of trade in economic growth and development.